Bun 1.0: A speedy and simplified toolkit for JavaScript and TypeScript now available

The toolkit for developing, testing, running, and bundling JavaScript and TypeScript projects, Bun, has officially released its version 1.0. According to the announcement, the toolkit is now “stable and production-ready”. Bun's mission is to eradicate slowness and complexity from JavaScript without discarding its best features.

Bun serves as a drop-in replacement for Node.js (or Deno), meaning that existing Node.js applications and npm packages can operate seamlessly within Bun. It supports Node APIs, including built-in modules like fs, path, and net, globals such as __dirname and process, and the Node.js module resolution algorithm (node_modules).

The toolkit boasts speed, starting up to four times faster than Node.js. This speed difference becomes even more pronounced when running a TypeScript file, which Node.js requires being transpiled before running.

Bun is built using Apple's WebKit engine, in contrast to Node.js and other runtimes that utilize Google's V8 engine. WebKit is renowned for its speed, efficiency, and decades of rigorous testing.

Bun 1.0 introduces TypeScript and JSX support, ESM & CommonJS compatibility, built-in support for Web standard APIs, hot reloading support, plugin support, among other features. It also provides highly-optimized, standard-library APIs for common developer needs.

The Bun 1.0 toolkit is available for download on macOS, Linux, and Windows platforms.